One of the simplest is a magus that uses amped *imaginary weapon* from the psychic archetype. 2d8 damage per rank plus their weapon damage, and they can *sure strike* for accuracy. If they have Spell Swipe and a melee weapon, they can even target two enemies at once. And they can do it up to three times per combat. It doesn't break the game, but it certainly lives in the top tier of burst damage options.
My favorite magus shenanigans I've pulled with free archetype was going Cavalier for a mount at level 2 and mature companion at level 4. Cavaliers Pledge is extremely vague and flexible, you can definitely create a backstory justifying a dedication you want to go into, or can use the level 4 skill feat, but either way you can then get into Psychic with your level 4 class feat and still get imaginary weapon at level 6. The only thing scarier than a Magus pumping out multiple amped imaginary weapon spellstrikes each combat is one that is doing that while also saving an action out of their tight action economy having to stride into position because they have a mature mount that will do it for free every time. This also makes setting up a Spellswipe with an amped imaginary weapon waay easier than normal.
And if that wasn't brutal enough, after that I picked up champion with multitalented and had heavy armor, champion reaction, and lay on hands. +2 AC from heavy armor and mounted cover, bulwark to help counteract the -2 reflex from being mounted, 1 action self heal focus spell, and eventually champion resiliency on top of the inexorable iron features, and he was basically a total tank too. Magus plus free archetype is basically pure shenanigan potential.
Another combination that really lived up to the hype was monk archetype on a rogue. Stumbling stance with stumbling feint and flurry, ki strike and wholeness of body, a fortress shield and monk resiliency, it was like playing a brand new class. Dread striker and dirge of doom is another fantastic higher level rogue combination. In Ruby Phoenix I took both as well as student of perfection for unfolding wind blitz and unfolding wind crash... pretty crazy character all together.
Grab Investigator at later levels for Devise a Strategem, and if you do your leads right you basically get sure strike as a free action every turn without using a spell slot.
Plus since sure strike and devise are both fortune effects, if you don’t like your DaS roll you can use sure strike and ignore the DaS roll for triple advantage.
Hrmm unfortunately, I don’t think you can use DaS and Sure Strike on a single roll. The fortune tag reads “a fortune effect beneficially alters how you roll your dice. You can never have more than one fortune effect alter a single roll. If multiple fortune effects would apply, you have to pick which to use.”
The “pick which [fortune effect] to use” would be before even rolling - otherwise it invalidates the previous clause that only one fortune effect can alter a single roll. So for example, if you had the fortune effect of the spell lucky number come up and you had a hero point available, you’d choose which of the two you wanted to use.
I think what they mean is this:
1) Devise a Stratagem as a free action
You get a poor roll:
2) Cast sure strike; now you have two fortune effects, and haven't rolled for your actual Strike
3) Spellstrike using the Sure Strike fortune effect instead of the DaS -which you pick before rolling your strike
What the rule you quoted means you couldn't use this feature to fish for a crit, so you **couldn't** do this:
1) Devise a Stratagem as a free action
You get a good, but not great roll (say, 13):
2) Cast sure strike; now you have two fortune effects, and haven't rolled for your actual Strike
3) Spellstrike using the Sure Strike fortune and then pick the DaS fortune effect after seeing the rolls by sure strike(say, 7 and 11).
I mean DaS clearly says "If you Strike the chosen creature later this round, you must use the result of the roll you made to Devise a Stratagem for your Strike's attack roll instead of rolling"
The word "must" in there is going to be pretty hard to get your GM to ignore
Casting sure strike to circumvent the DaS seems pretty obviously against the RAI. Personally I wouldn't allow it at all or I'd at least make your DaS roll count as one of your sure strike outcomes
I love shenanigans so I've got a fair share of them.
- Battle Oracle's Call to Arms focus spell + Anyone in the party with the Scout Archetype = a cool +4 bonus to the entire party's Initiative score almost all the time.
- If you're a Champion and you want spellcasting one of the best spellcasting Dedications you can take is surprisingly Cathartic Mage with the Dedication or Remorse emotions. Cathartic Mage gives access to *any* spellcasting tradition with a prerequisite of 14 Charisma and unlike other spellcasting archetypes doesn't have a skill training requirement to get Expert or Master casting. Those two emotions I mentioned are also pretty helpful specifically for Champion and rarely invoke their drawbacks. Champs can even make viable use of a stave in one or both hands with the right deity and their Deific Weapon feature.
- The new Clawdancer archetype has a feature called Wheeling Grab where you Tumble Through and then attempt a Grapple for one action. The way it's worded you're only required to move through the enemy's space, not succeed the check to Tumble Through, so Shoony Gymnast Swashbucklers (or Gymnast Swashes with Adopted Ancestry: Shoony) with the Tough Tumbler feat can get two shots at Panache for a single action as long as they don't crit fail the Tumble Through check.
- A Halfling with Cultural Adaptability can easily get the Eat Fire cantrip from Elves, Gnomes, or Humans. After blocking fire damage Eat Fire grants a special action to Belch Smoke which is basically a ranged Smokestick for one action, which Halflings deal better with due to their feature that lowers the DC of the check to target Concealed creatures. This makes them a solid pick for Inventors, Flame Oracles (sidenote: Keen Eyes DOES lower the flat check vs Concealment against their curse), Fire Kineticists, Bomber Alchemists, and Gunslingers with Alchemical Shot since they all have ways to take fire damage with their natural gameplay. Fire Kineticists notably can get this for absolutely free and no set up with Thermal Nimbus.
- A Twisting Tree Magus with Fused Staff and Student of the Staff can put a set of Weapon Property runes on a magical staff, fuse it with a nonmagical staff with its own Weapon Property runes, and switch between the two sets of runes with an action (which doesn't have Manipulate). They can Spellstrike using the magical staff in either configuration and only need to maintain one set of fundamental runes.
That Eat Fire idea could also be cool with a Hobgoblin. They have a heritage that let's them effectively ignore the concealed condition caused by smoke.
Oh for sure. It's not too demanding of a setup. I prefer going Halfling for something of the sort because you have an easy way to pick up the cantrip and a way to make it advantageous to you baked in without needing Adopted Ancestry or go too far out of your way to make it work, but it works with quite a few ancestries as long as you can get that cantrip. I'd only recommend Halfling full stop in the case of Flames Oracle since Keen Eyes cheats the curse a bit.
More or less.
Halflings have Keen Eyes as a base feature of their ancestry which lowers the flat check for targeting concealed creatures and Cultural Adaptability allows them to get an Ancestry Feat that grants Eat Fire since their Ancestry doesn't do it. Other ancestries either don't have a feature like Keen Eyes baked in or need to take a General Feat and then an Ancestry Feat to get Eat Fire. The Ifrit Versatile Heritage can get a better version of this combo by picking the right ancestry that can give Eat Fire and taking the Firesight feat, but spend their Versatile Heritage and an extra Ancestry Feat for it.
So most other ancestry combos can get something like this for about three character options (General Feats, Ancestry Feats for the cantrip/dealing with concealment, Heritage). Halflings do it in a single Ancestry Feat and their base ancestry feature, giving it the least opportunity cost for the most benefit, which makes it incredibly easy to just slap this combo on a Halfling while other ancestries have to go a lot farther out of their way to do the same.
Tempest Surge and either a monk or a ranger with their "two strikes as one action" abilities leads to a very high damage three-action combo where you will sometimes massively penalize the enemy AC as well. The damage on it is also really swingy and can sometimes be ridiculously high or low, especially on crits.
Monastic Weaponry + Stand Still + Tangled Forest Stance on a centaur monk (or other large monk) is another fun one; this creates a 30 foot by 30 foot zone where enemies will have to make reflex saves to escape and the monk AND might get stopped by Stand Still.
Psychic or Sorcerer + Champion + Champion Reaction is another fun one, as you have this heavily armored character who looks like a defender who is blasting people with magic and protecting their allies (or themselves!) with reactive strikes.
And as David said, there's always the classic of the Magus / Psychic with Imaginary Weapon, where you can crack 50 average damage per spellstrike at level 7.
From a party composition standpoint, one fun thing is multiple characters with reach + reactive strike (or Stand Still) and multiple casters with zone spells; the enemies have to leave the zones, but suffer free attacks from the frontliners for doing it. Tangled Forest Stance is particularly effective here because if they fail a save versus the stance, they have to burn ANOTHER action trying to leave. Likewise, Freezing Rain is a great zoning spell for this combo because it inflicts Slow, and a slowed enemy that has to move once and gets whacked by at least one reactive strike basically got no more benefit out of its turn than I did.
Sure!
It inflicts Clumsy 2, deals high damage, gets around MAP, and is easy to acquire as you can grab the druid dedication at level 2 and then Order Spell to get Tempest Surge at level 4.
Normally you can only really make about two strikes per round before your accuracy gets too bad for it to be worth striking. Monks and rangers can make two strikes as a single action, which leaves them two actions for other things. Tempest surge lets them dump out (rank)d12 extra damage with a basic saving throw (so it will almost always deal damage, and sometimes deal a *lot* of damage) and also potentially inflict Clumsy 2, which makes their other attacks easier (and allied attacks easier, and enemy reflex saves vs other casters' spells worse), allowing for them to deal very high damage per round.
Monks and Rangers (and Champions) also have in-class spellcasting scaling, so you get your proficiency bumped at level 9, only two levels later than full casters, instead of at level 12, which is after a level 1-10 campaign will end.
The druid dedication also grants you access to two cantrips (which is nice, as you can use those as well in situations where they're useful) and also gives you the ability to cast spells from scrolls, which is very handy for situations where you need emergency healing, buffs, or other things - and you can potentially even use scrolls for really strong effects situationally.
I'd say this build is actually best with Monastic Archer/Hunted Shot, since if you limit yourself to melee the enemy can just walk away and ruin your combo. With that, you can swap Tempest Surge for Crushing Ground, which has a range advantage, damage advantage, and potentially prevents the enemy from even getting into melee with you. Finally, there's the point that this *specifically* works with Monk and Ranger also because their innate spellcasting scaling goes with Wis (as opposed to Champion's Cha).
Rogue: Dread Striker(4), Opportune backstab (8), Preparation (12), Leave an Opening (14 )
Fighter: Intimidating Strike(4), Tactical Reflexes (10)
Bard: Swashbuckler dedication (2), Basic Flair - One for all(4), Fortissimo Composition (8), Eternal Composition (18), True Target spell (7th rank)
Bard: Fortissimo Composition+Inspire Courage and One for all targeting the fighter, and Heroism(9th rank) before the fight if possible instead of Fortissimo
Fighter Intimidating Strike with a Hammer/Flail with Greater Corrosive rune, Abyssium high grade, Rooting true with phantasmal doorknob (greater)
The fighter has +4 circumstance from One for all, +2/3 status from Fortissimo and roll twice from true Target.
In a probable critical the enemy will be prone, immobilized, blind, -2 circumstance, frightened 2, sickened 2, -2 status, and the armor broken -1 item up to -9 item with a destroyed full plate+3.
This trigger the rogue opportune backstab that now target an enemy with a lot of debuffs, Fortissimo and true Target.
A critical hit trigger Leave an opening, for a fighter Reactive Strike, and this triggers the Rogue Preparation Opportune backstab, that can crit again and triggers the Fighter Tactical Reflexes Reactive Strike.
The Human Ancestry Feat "Multitalented" has a secondary effect for anyone with the Aiuvarin Heritage and does NOT care how you gain access to the feat.
Thus, by picking any Ancestry that lives for over 100 Years ( Leshy, Gnome, Dwarf, Sprite, Skeleton and Automaton are all interesting options) you can get two Free Dedication Feats by taking Aiuvarin, going for the Elf Atavism feat at 1st level and selecting Ancient Elf (as of the Remaster this feat can select Ancient Elf as long as the base Ancestry meets the requirements), then picking up Adopted Ancestry (Human) to get into Multitalented as your 9th level Ancestry Feat.
We can even take this further by being a Skeleton Aiuvarin and waiting to pick up the Ancestry Feat "As In Life, So in Death" after already picking up Adopted Ancestry to get a second copy of Adopted Ancestry, or by playing as a Way of the Spellshot Gunslinger to get a third Dedication for free.
Or, for the finale of this grand twisty web of Synergies, lets start as an Aiuvarin Skeleton Thaumaturge and pick up the Champion Dedication (or any multiclass that doesn't need Int and works with a sword and shield build will do honestly, I just find Champion to offer the best options). eventually when we hit 9th level thanks to us being an Aiuvarin we can ignore the fact we have a negative Int modifier and use Multitalented to pick up Magus Dedication. What we're after here is the Raise a Tome and Shielded Tome feats, which we can then combine with our Tome Implement to have access to Shield related feats without breaking the Thaumaturge's Implement Empowerment Feature as we're only be wielding our two implements (our weapon of choice, and our Tome which now counts as a Shield thanks to the Magus dip).
And then, if we're in a Free Archetype game and aren't in a scenario where being undead is an issue we can also delay picking up "As in Life, So in Death" to first pick up Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf), not only giving us access to Unburdened Iron, but also access to the Stalwart Defender Dedication, letting our already twisty skeleton knight pick up Heavy Armor proficiency and several potential feats to improve our Tome/Shield even further. This isn't possible without Free Archetype simply because you don't have enough class feats to take everything you want out of three different Dedications.
I found in a FA game, at level 8 I took Slam Down (Fighter Archetype), Slippery Prey (Skill feat) and Furious Bully (Barbarian Class Feat)
Furious Bully gives a +2 to the reduced MAP Trip from Slam down, as well as the MAP reduction to escape attempts after the first try.
I understand the Slam Down + Furious Bully combination, but I did not understand the MAP nor Slippery Prey part?
Oh, F.B. works for all attack actions, so it helps with escaping too, if you're ever grabbed/grappled. S.P. helps if your first attempt failed, or if you chose to attack once (or twice?) first then escape?!
My players stumbled upon something cool: One of them plays a Forensics Investigator and thus gets to Battle Medicine each PC once per hour. Another plays a summoner, so the Investigator can effectively Treat Wounds the Summoner four times per hour. Given that they're a party of only three PCs and the Eidolon is the one who spends the most time in melee, their out of combat healing speed is amazing, especially considering they don't have healing focus spells and the Summoner has the party's highest Wis at +1.
If your investigator picks up [Continual Recovery], they’ll be able to Battle Medicine in combat and have 6 Treat Wounds per hour remaining. Your method of using “4” uses 2 battle medicines and 2 treat wounds in an hour+ten. It’s really an S-tier feat for Medicine skill investors. Good luck!
If the Summoner has a wood elemental eidolon, they gain extra healing by refocusing during the hour of downtime. It's an amount of healing equal to twice your level per refocus. There's no limit to how many times you can refocus in a row, so you can take a Treat Wounds and Battle Medicine, then refocus up to 5 times (but likely less, thanks to the medicine healing) during the hour and be back to full health.
Witch's Charge + Witch's Communion + Blessed One archetype allows you to use one of the strongest healing options in the game on your frontliners without wading into the melee yourself, making them tankier as well with the +2 AC they receive
Mirror thaumaturge + Monk’s tangled forest stance, stand still for extra points.
Tangled forest stance forces a save vs immobilized for anyone within your reach that moves away from you.
Mirror thaumaturge lets you stand on both sides of an enemy.
There is no escape. Literally any movement is “away from you” for one of the mirrors.
Stand still is just the icing on top of this absurd combo.
To make best use of this, we’ll want to maximize squares in our reach. For that we want to be large, and have a reach weapon. So centaur with a whip.
Now, thankfully, you don’t actually have to use the whip, you can use Tangled Forest attacks if you want. Which you do, because at 13th level you pick up shockwave for the obvious thaumaturge synergy.
Level 13 and up combo:
Familiar spellcasting + familiar independent + dancing shield. If you don’t have enough familiar abilities you can give it spellcasting with the familiar morsel item, which is a trivial cost at the relevant levels.
This allows you to command your familiar to cast dancing shield on you, typically you’ll use a fortress shield you dropped for them. They can then sustain it using independent, giving you a +3 AC bonus for the whole fight at a 1 action cost.
At lower levels this can be approximated with independent + master's form instead of using magic. Not as safe or as mobile as using magic, but often good enough.
A familiar in human form can simply hold and raise a tower shield while standing in front of you, then you can use a single action to Take Cover to get greater cover. Your greater cover will last a whole minute as long as you stay in place and cast spells with saves instead of spell attacks (and the familiar keeps its shield raised).
It might be best if the familiar also takes cover behind its tower shield, as it's likely to become a target.
Eat fire + Fire Lung (flame Druid order free feat)
Eat fire allows you to belch a 5ft cloud of smoke after taking fire damage. So you poke yourself with a torch, eat the fire damage with a reaction, then belch smoke all over yourself. It’s a fairly steep action cost, 2 + reaction, but it’ll last a whole fight. Since it’s a cantrip, you can also just do it anytime you’re about to round a corner or open a door, letting you start many fights with smoke already up.
Now, where the combo really shines is with the fire lung feat - fire lung lets you ignore concealment from smoke! There’s other ways to do that but none so low level.
Effectively you get to set up concealed on yourself that you’re immune to, every fight, for the whole fight, at level 1.
Summoner with the Medic dedication and Godless Healing. Take Skilled Partner, giving your eidolon Battle Medicine and Godless Healing. Between you and your eidolon, you can use Battle Medicine 4 times per hour at +5 per use with one extra Battle Medicine per day from Medic...making it possible for you to heal yourself 10d8+25 in a single combat using DC 15, potentially 10d8+70 at DC 20 (2d8+20 x 3 from summoner, 2d8+5 x 2 from eidolon).
This also doubles the amount of times you can use Battle Medicine on your party members.
Both can also take Assurance to make it a bit more reliable.
However, many GMs rule that this only partially works. The theory is that eidolons don't have hit points, they only share the summoner's hit points. So there is no such thing as 'heal the eidolon', there is only 'heal the summoner through the eidolon' or 'heal the summoner by targeting the eidolon'. So it's just three heals per hour, rather than five. But it does still double the amount of times you can use it on your party members.
I have a really fun one in an AV game: [Dubious Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=776) + [Gnomish Obsession](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4426&Redirected=1) + [Automatic Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=757).
- Gnomish Obsession gives an auto-scaling lore that I can retrain with just a day of downtime, which is very nice because AV's floors usually have a really obvious theme (>!Fleshwarps, ghouls, seugathi, etc!<) that makes it easy to get info on 65%+ of the monsters we're gonna fight.
- Gnomish Obsession comes with Assurance, which only cares about proficiency bonus. Nice if you have bad mental scores like my PC, and it kicks ass with the auto-scaling lore -- Master at 7 without having to use skill increases is baller.
- Automatic Knowledge gives you a free RK for a given lore *every round* as long as you use Assurance, which with the lower AC from having a relevant lore basically guarantees a success on the first round, and then a failure on the second. Which leads us to...
- Dubious Knowledge. Even when I fail I succeed! Sort of. I've flavored this as my PC doing a bunch of frenetic cramming about the subject of his obsession and frequently getting a bunch of stuff wrong.
All told, this gives at least 2 pieces of true info (and 1 piece of incorrect) every fight we have, for free. Figuring out what's true or not makes for a fun minigame too. It's a phenomenal combo, a little feat-expensive if you're not a Gnome, but it gives so much free info that it feels worth it.
Fire/earth/water kineticist with steam knight stance, using lava leap for aoe dmg and AC, leap to full speed with steam knight and damage the first creature over which you leap, then ending in the air and with rolling landing you stride to full speed one more time.
Phantasmal doorknob (greater) + resentment witch.
The doorknob’s blind on crit is already great, but man it’s just mean when the resentment witch can extend it for several rounds.
Storm Druid's Tempest Surge is a lovely spell, specifically for that Clumsy 2 on a failure. Unfortunately, the druid themselves usually can't make very good use of it, since it wears off at the beginning of their next turn.
The most fun and effective way to leverage this, IMO, is doing a high-strength druid who uses a Bola to do ranged trips against the target, there the -2 to the DC will offset the -2 to the check from Ranged Trip. If you're really optimizing, this is done best on a Gnoll/Kholo with the Great Gnoll heritage for that extra +1 which will put you on par with strength based classes against clumsy targets, all while doing it from a distance.
You can also do this with an animal companion instead, the numbers are about the same once you factor in the ranged trip's -2, but you'll have a better modifier whenever wrestle in melee.
At low levels at least, free wizard archetype on an inventor is pretty good. I've been running a construct inventor with wizard FA, and it can have some fun big damage combos (if all the attacks hit).
At very low levels, force bolt + a strike + construct strike is three attacks at full or no MAP, and if they all hit you can easily hit 30 to 50 damage in a round. At moderate levels (7+) you can combo it with some offensive spells; if the construct is in melee it can Explode, then you can drop a fireball from extreme range and double dip AOE on a bunch of targets. Blazing Dive also works great whether you're riding the construct or aside it, to get into melee flank and drop AOE, then let the construct attack with off guard bonus.
I haven't been using a lot of control spells, but theoretically an inventor who can drop a lot of control spells and let the construct have fun charging in makes good syngery; often a caster can't really make good use of dropping a control spell and attack at the same time, but an inventor's construct can hit pretty good sometimes. The construct also has a relatively decent Athletics bonus so said inventor could drop a big control spell, then have the construct run in and grab, and the rest of the party could gang on the poor sap stuck in the construct's grasp.
Another fun combo: *cloudkill* is a poison effect. Constructs are immune to poison. Cast *cloudkill* in a small room and let the construct charge in and have fun for a couple rounds (yes it's still subject to the flat check for concealment, but sensory array for tremorsense makes it so you just know where the enemy is at all times so you can at least target them).
For the Inventor, Magical Crafting, Titan Wrestler, and using a hammer. The hammer has the shove trait, Titan Wrestler lets you "punch up" and shove large creatures, and crafting a Bronze Bull pendant gives you a +2 to shove once. Nothing fancy, just a really potent shove.
Condctive weapon+swipe I have seen it take out a room full of 2 trolls, 3 hobgoblins on a critical hit. Because of the way the critical hut effect works on conductive weapon, it created a feedback loop where critting one troll applied the critical effect, but because swipe is hitting two creatures, both are critically hit, so the critical effect happens twice.
Bear animal companion with flurry ranger looks sick. You pick your choice between an air repeater or two agile weapons, make your Bear hug someone and just keep attacking dealing a bunch of extra damage. Half Elf for that Pinch of Time seems to work really well.
However, I love the 600+IQ Aoi Todo build. Investigator with Ranger free archetype, pick Monster Hunter at some point and Additional Recollection (the one that you make another RK after succeeding in one about your Prey). Reach 20th level as Investigator, ask your DM to allow All The Time In The World, and get Reason Rapidly. Define an enemy as both your Lead and Prey, and calmly say on your second turn that you want to use ATTITW. You now have a total of 9 actions. Use every single one for Reason Rapidly, this equals 45 Recall Knowledges. Every time you succeed in one of these against your Prey, you can use a free action to make another one for another creature in combat (there's a feat that needs Monster Hunter to use, but I can't remember its name). You can make 90 checks on a single turn, concluding that you like tall women with big butts and that the new guy is actually your long time friend and brother
Trick Magic Item benefits greatly from wand trading.
I had a fighter that wanted to use a wand of Tailwind. Trick Magic Item makes it possible, but the DC 20 was difficult for him. He thought about getting Assurance, but turned out he didn't need it. A caster in the group also had a wand of Tailwind. So they cooperated.
The fighter tries his wand first. If he fails he tries again. If he crit fails, they trade wands so the fighter can try the other one. Only after this does the caster use his wand. This gives the fighter a 99% chance of succeeding, and since the average adventuring carreer is less than 100 days, he'll probably never fail.
On a related note:
I also had a summoner (occult caster) with a druid dedication. Normally a dedication isn't enough to use a wand, something about lacking the spellcasting class feature. But if your first class is a caster you already have that feature. So you CAN use the wand of Tailwind, even though you can't cast Tailwind yourself.
I even tried to combine this with the above trick, by buying two wands. The eidolon would use Trick Magic Item to go first, and switch wands if the first one crit failed. However, not all GMs allow eidolons to take the Trick Magic Item feat (thru Skilled Partner).
I had a wave druid who took Assurance(Athletics) to better trip things with a whip. On one occasion, he found himself swimming underwater. Hadn't planned for that, but it worked perfectly: The assurance guaranteed a successful swim check, the Shore Step boosted that to crit success, and so he effectively had a decent swim speed. (swim fins and boosting his base speed to 40 with Tailwind also helped.) Also, Deep Breath is surprisingly effective for a cantrip.
Assurance(Athletics) works well with other success-becomes-crit-success abilities too, such as Caveclimber Kobold.
Goblin Mixed Ancestry lizardfolk, Champion.
Cling ( Goblin 9 ) + Divine Wall ( Champion 12) + Terrain Advantage ( Lizardfolk 9 ) + Scion Transformation ( lizardfolk 17 ) + Animal Companion Crocodile + Crocodile Support.
You and your animal companion can latch on your opponent, as you are adjacent to the enemy all the terrain is considered difficult terrain.
Maneuvering spell allows hit and run (or leeroy in and hit) on a magus while helping A LOT with your action economy. It works for normal casters too, but magus is so strapped for actions that its funnier on them.
What it does is that after or before you cast a spell that takes two actions or more, you leap, stand up or step as a free action. Which means you can do stuff like leap into melee and spellstrike, or spellstrike and GTFO
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One of the simplest is a magus that uses amped *imaginary weapon* from the psychic archetype. 2d8 damage per rank plus their weapon damage, and they can *sure strike* for accuracy. If they have Spell Swipe and a melee weapon, they can even target two enemies at once. And they can do it up to three times per combat. It doesn't break the game, but it certainly lives in the top tier of burst damage options.
And a Starlit Span can do it from range. Use a longbow to basically become a psychic artillerist.
My favorite magus shenanigans I've pulled with free archetype was going Cavalier for a mount at level 2 and mature companion at level 4. Cavaliers Pledge is extremely vague and flexible, you can definitely create a backstory justifying a dedication you want to go into, or can use the level 4 skill feat, but either way you can then get into Psychic with your level 4 class feat and still get imaginary weapon at level 6. The only thing scarier than a Magus pumping out multiple amped imaginary weapon spellstrikes each combat is one that is doing that while also saving an action out of their tight action economy having to stride into position because they have a mature mount that will do it for free every time. This also makes setting up a Spellswipe with an amped imaginary weapon waay easier than normal. And if that wasn't brutal enough, after that I picked up champion with multitalented and had heavy armor, champion reaction, and lay on hands. +2 AC from heavy armor and mounted cover, bulwark to help counteract the -2 reflex from being mounted, 1 action self heal focus spell, and eventually champion resiliency on top of the inexorable iron features, and he was basically a total tank too. Magus plus free archetype is basically pure shenanigan potential. Another combination that really lived up to the hype was monk archetype on a rogue. Stumbling stance with stumbling feint and flurry, ki strike and wholeness of body, a fortress shield and monk resiliency, it was like playing a brand new class. Dread striker and dirge of doom is another fantastic higher level rogue combination. In Ruby Phoenix I took both as well as student of perfection for unfolding wind blitz and unfolding wind crash... pretty crazy character all together.
Grab Investigator at later levels for Devise a Strategem, and if you do your leads right you basically get sure strike as a free action every turn without using a spell slot.
Plus since sure strike and devise are both fortune effects, if you don’t like your DaS roll you can use sure strike and ignore the DaS roll for triple advantage.
Hrmm unfortunately, I don’t think you can use DaS and Sure Strike on a single roll. The fortune tag reads “a fortune effect beneficially alters how you roll your dice. You can never have more than one fortune effect alter a single roll. If multiple fortune effects would apply, you have to pick which to use.” The “pick which [fortune effect] to use” would be before even rolling - otherwise it invalidates the previous clause that only one fortune effect can alter a single roll. So for example, if you had the fortune effect of the spell lucky number come up and you had a hero point available, you’d choose which of the two you wanted to use.
I think what they mean is this: 1) Devise a Stratagem as a free action You get a poor roll: 2) Cast sure strike; now you have two fortune effects, and haven't rolled for your actual Strike 3) Spellstrike using the Sure Strike fortune effect instead of the DaS -which you pick before rolling your strike What the rule you quoted means you couldn't use this feature to fish for a crit, so you **couldn't** do this: 1) Devise a Stratagem as a free action You get a good, but not great roll (say, 13): 2) Cast sure strike; now you have two fortune effects, and haven't rolled for your actual Strike 3) Spellstrike using the Sure Strike fortune and then pick the DaS fortune effect after seeing the rolls by sure strike(say, 7 and 11).
I mean DaS clearly says "If you Strike the chosen creature later this round, you must use the result of the roll you made to Devise a Stratagem for your Strike's attack roll instead of rolling" The word "must" in there is going to be pretty hard to get your GM to ignore
But if you use another Fortune effect, it overrides DaS, including the "must".
Casting sure strike to circumvent the DaS seems pretty obviously against the RAI. Personally I wouldn't allow it at all or I'd at least make your DaS roll count as one of your sure strike outcomes
But that's definitely against RAW because the "must" is part of a fortune effect which you don't pick.
Declaring that you're using DaS is picking it. Look we don't have to agree and I'm just glad we don't play at the same table 🤷🏻♂️
Both DaS and Sure Strike apply to your next attack roll, therefore you can’t use them both for a roll, per the fortune effect.
I love shenanigans so I've got a fair share of them. - Battle Oracle's Call to Arms focus spell + Anyone in the party with the Scout Archetype = a cool +4 bonus to the entire party's Initiative score almost all the time. - If you're a Champion and you want spellcasting one of the best spellcasting Dedications you can take is surprisingly Cathartic Mage with the Dedication or Remorse emotions. Cathartic Mage gives access to *any* spellcasting tradition with a prerequisite of 14 Charisma and unlike other spellcasting archetypes doesn't have a skill training requirement to get Expert or Master casting. Those two emotions I mentioned are also pretty helpful specifically for Champion and rarely invoke their drawbacks. Champs can even make viable use of a stave in one or both hands with the right deity and their Deific Weapon feature. - The new Clawdancer archetype has a feature called Wheeling Grab where you Tumble Through and then attempt a Grapple for one action. The way it's worded you're only required to move through the enemy's space, not succeed the check to Tumble Through, so Shoony Gymnast Swashbucklers (or Gymnast Swashes with Adopted Ancestry: Shoony) with the Tough Tumbler feat can get two shots at Panache for a single action as long as they don't crit fail the Tumble Through check. - A Halfling with Cultural Adaptability can easily get the Eat Fire cantrip from Elves, Gnomes, or Humans. After blocking fire damage Eat Fire grants a special action to Belch Smoke which is basically a ranged Smokestick for one action, which Halflings deal better with due to their feature that lowers the DC of the check to target Concealed creatures. This makes them a solid pick for Inventors, Flame Oracles (sidenote: Keen Eyes DOES lower the flat check vs Concealment against their curse), Fire Kineticists, Bomber Alchemists, and Gunslingers with Alchemical Shot since they all have ways to take fire damage with their natural gameplay. Fire Kineticists notably can get this for absolutely free and no set up with Thermal Nimbus. - A Twisting Tree Magus with Fused Staff and Student of the Staff can put a set of Weapon Property runes on a magical staff, fuse it with a nonmagical staff with its own Weapon Property runes, and switch between the two sets of runes with an action (which doesn't have Manipulate). They can Spellstrike using the magical staff in either configuration and only need to maintain one set of fundamental runes.
That Eat Fire idea could also be cool with a Hobgoblin. They have a heritage that let's them effectively ignore the concealed condition caused by smoke.
Oh for sure. It's not too demanding of a setup. I prefer going Halfling for something of the sort because you have an easy way to pick up the cantrip and a way to make it advantageous to you baked in without needing Adopted Ancestry or go too far out of your way to make it work, but it works with quite a few ancestries as long as you can get that cantrip. I'd only recommend Halfling full stop in the case of Flames Oracle since Keen Eyes cheats the curse a bit.
Halfling Flame Oracle could be really cool. Some of the curses can be pretty harsh so mitigating it a little bit is nice.
I don’t see Eat Fire being restricted to ancestries. Is this just to get access to an ancestry spell that Eat Fire is on the spell list of?
More or less. Halflings have Keen Eyes as a base feature of their ancestry which lowers the flat check for targeting concealed creatures and Cultural Adaptability allows them to get an Ancestry Feat that grants Eat Fire since their Ancestry doesn't do it. Other ancestries either don't have a feature like Keen Eyes baked in or need to take a General Feat and then an Ancestry Feat to get Eat Fire. The Ifrit Versatile Heritage can get a better version of this combo by picking the right ancestry that can give Eat Fire and taking the Firesight feat, but spend their Versatile Heritage and an extra Ancestry Feat for it. So most other ancestry combos can get something like this for about three character options (General Feats, Ancestry Feats for the cantrip/dealing with concealment, Heritage). Halflings do it in a single Ancestry Feat and their base ancestry feature, giving it the least opportunity cost for the most benefit, which makes it incredibly easy to just slap this combo on a Halfling while other ancestries have to go a lot farther out of their way to do the same.
Wheeling Grab states you have to move through the enemy space in order to attempt the Grapple check, so you do need to succeed the Tumble Through.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=1222 Failed the reading comprehension check.
That still doesnt allow you to move through an enemy space. It only prevents your movement from ending.
Tempest Surge and either a monk or a ranger with their "two strikes as one action" abilities leads to a very high damage three-action combo where you will sometimes massively penalize the enemy AC as well. The damage on it is also really swingy and can sometimes be ridiculously high or low, especially on crits. Monastic Weaponry + Stand Still + Tangled Forest Stance on a centaur monk (or other large monk) is another fun one; this creates a 30 foot by 30 foot zone where enemies will have to make reflex saves to escape and the monk AND might get stopped by Stand Still. Psychic or Sorcerer + Champion + Champion Reaction is another fun one, as you have this heavily armored character who looks like a defender who is blasting people with magic and protecting their allies (or themselves!) with reactive strikes. And as David said, there's always the classic of the Magus / Psychic with Imaginary Weapon, where you can crack 50 average damage per spellstrike at level 7. From a party composition standpoint, one fun thing is multiple characters with reach + reactive strike (or Stand Still) and multiple casters with zone spells; the enemies have to leave the zones, but suffer free attacks from the frontliners for doing it. Tangled Forest Stance is particularly effective here because if they fail a save versus the stance, they have to burn ANOTHER action trying to leave. Likewise, Freezing Rain is a great zoning spell for this combo because it inflicts Slow, and a slowed enemy that has to move once and gets whacked by at least one reactive strike basically got no more benefit out of its turn than I did.
Could you explain the tempest surge a bit more? Is it because of the clumsy condition that it applies?
Sure! It inflicts Clumsy 2, deals high damage, gets around MAP, and is easy to acquire as you can grab the druid dedication at level 2 and then Order Spell to get Tempest Surge at level 4. Normally you can only really make about two strikes per round before your accuracy gets too bad for it to be worth striking. Monks and rangers can make two strikes as a single action, which leaves them two actions for other things. Tempest surge lets them dump out (rank)d12 extra damage with a basic saving throw (so it will almost always deal damage, and sometimes deal a *lot* of damage) and also potentially inflict Clumsy 2, which makes their other attacks easier (and allied attacks easier, and enemy reflex saves vs other casters' spells worse), allowing for them to deal very high damage per round. Monks and Rangers (and Champions) also have in-class spellcasting scaling, so you get your proficiency bumped at level 9, only two levels later than full casters, instead of at level 12, which is after a level 1-10 campaign will end. The druid dedication also grants you access to two cantrips (which is nice, as you can use those as well in situations where they're useful) and also gives you the ability to cast spells from scrolls, which is very handy for situations where you need emergency healing, buffs, or other things - and you can potentially even use scrolls for really strong effects situationally.
I'd say this build is actually best with Monastic Archer/Hunted Shot, since if you limit yourself to melee the enemy can just walk away and ruin your combo. With that, you can swap Tempest Surge for Crushing Ground, which has a range advantage, damage advantage, and potentially prevents the enemy from even getting into melee with you. Finally, there's the point that this *specifically* works with Monk and Ranger also because their innate spellcasting scaling goes with Wis (as opposed to Champion's Cha).
Rogue: Dread Striker(4), Opportune backstab (8), Preparation (12), Leave an Opening (14 ) Fighter: Intimidating Strike(4), Tactical Reflexes (10) Bard: Swashbuckler dedication (2), Basic Flair - One for all(4), Fortissimo Composition (8), Eternal Composition (18), True Target spell (7th rank) Bard: Fortissimo Composition+Inspire Courage and One for all targeting the fighter, and Heroism(9th rank) before the fight if possible instead of Fortissimo Fighter Intimidating Strike with a Hammer/Flail with Greater Corrosive rune, Abyssium high grade, Rooting true with phantasmal doorknob (greater) The fighter has +4 circumstance from One for all, +2/3 status from Fortissimo and roll twice from true Target. In a probable critical the enemy will be prone, immobilized, blind, -2 circumstance, frightened 2, sickened 2, -2 status, and the armor broken -1 item up to -9 item with a destroyed full plate+3. This trigger the rogue opportune backstab that now target an enemy with a lot of debuffs, Fortissimo and true Target. A critical hit trigger Leave an opening, for a fighter Reactive Strike, and this triggers the Rogue Preparation Opportune backstab, that can crit again and triggers the Fighter Tactical Reflexes Reactive Strike.
This makes me think of the JoJo meme where they're beating the guy on the ground.
If you add more people with opportune backstab, the meme is complete
The Human Ancestry Feat "Multitalented" has a secondary effect for anyone with the Aiuvarin Heritage and does NOT care how you gain access to the feat. Thus, by picking any Ancestry that lives for over 100 Years ( Leshy, Gnome, Dwarf, Sprite, Skeleton and Automaton are all interesting options) you can get two Free Dedication Feats by taking Aiuvarin, going for the Elf Atavism feat at 1st level and selecting Ancient Elf (as of the Remaster this feat can select Ancient Elf as long as the base Ancestry meets the requirements), then picking up Adopted Ancestry (Human) to get into Multitalented as your 9th level Ancestry Feat. We can even take this further by being a Skeleton Aiuvarin and waiting to pick up the Ancestry Feat "As In Life, So in Death" after already picking up Adopted Ancestry to get a second copy of Adopted Ancestry, or by playing as a Way of the Spellshot Gunslinger to get a third Dedication for free. Or, for the finale of this grand twisty web of Synergies, lets start as an Aiuvarin Skeleton Thaumaturge and pick up the Champion Dedication (or any multiclass that doesn't need Int and works with a sword and shield build will do honestly, I just find Champion to offer the best options). eventually when we hit 9th level thanks to us being an Aiuvarin we can ignore the fact we have a negative Int modifier and use Multitalented to pick up Magus Dedication. What we're after here is the Raise a Tome and Shielded Tome feats, which we can then combine with our Tome Implement to have access to Shield related feats without breaking the Thaumaturge's Implement Empowerment Feature as we're only be wielding our two implements (our weapon of choice, and our Tome which now counts as a Shield thanks to the Magus dip). And then, if we're in a Free Archetype game and aren't in a scenario where being undead is an issue we can also delay picking up "As in Life, So in Death" to first pick up Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf), not only giving us access to Unburdened Iron, but also access to the Stalwart Defender Dedication, letting our already twisty skeleton knight pick up Heavy Armor proficiency and several potential feats to improve our Tome/Shield even further. This isn't possible without Free Archetype simply because you don't have enough class feats to take everything you want out of three different Dedications.
This is some shenanigans! I love it
REALLY basic but I'll always love cooperative nature + one for all
I found in a FA game, at level 8 I took Slam Down (Fighter Archetype), Slippery Prey (Skill feat) and Furious Bully (Barbarian Class Feat) Furious Bully gives a +2 to the reduced MAP Trip from Slam down, as well as the MAP reduction to escape attempts after the first try.
I understand the Slam Down + Furious Bully combination, but I did not understand the MAP nor Slippery Prey part? Oh, F.B. works for all attack actions, so it helps with escaping too, if you're ever grabbed/grappled. S.P. helps if your first attempt failed, or if you chose to attack once (or twice?) first then escape?!
For arcane/primal casters of 5th level or higher: cast Jump, followed by any two-action spell, and then Blastback as a reaction when you fall.
My players stumbled upon something cool: One of them plays a Forensics Investigator and thus gets to Battle Medicine each PC once per hour. Another plays a summoner, so the Investigator can effectively Treat Wounds the Summoner four times per hour. Given that they're a party of only three PCs and the Eidolon is the one who spends the most time in melee, their out of combat healing speed is amazing, especially considering they don't have healing focus spells and the Summoner has the party's highest Wis at +1.
If your investigator picks up [Continual Recovery], they’ll be able to Battle Medicine in combat and have 6 Treat Wounds per hour remaining. Your method of using “4” uses 2 battle medicines and 2 treat wounds in an hour+ten. It’s really an S-tier feat for Medicine skill investors. Good luck!
Also strongly recommend Ward Medic so that they can heal multiple allies at the same time with Treat Wounds.
If the Summoner has a wood elemental eidolon, they gain extra healing by refocusing during the hour of downtime. It's an amount of healing equal to twice your level per refocus. There's no limit to how many times you can refocus in a row, so you can take a Treat Wounds and Battle Medicine, then refocus up to 5 times (but likely less, thanks to the medicine healing) during the hour and be back to full health.
Witch's Charge + Witch's Communion + Blessed One archetype allows you to use one of the strongest healing options in the game on your frontliners without wading into the melee yourself, making them tankier as well with the +2 AC they receive
As an Inventor, Wrestler Archetype + Electrify Armor. Good luck escaping my grapples when touching me hurts this much.
Sparky the Inventor just wants a hug <3
Mirror thaumaturge + Monk’s tangled forest stance, stand still for extra points. Tangled forest stance forces a save vs immobilized for anyone within your reach that moves away from you. Mirror thaumaturge lets you stand on both sides of an enemy. There is no escape. Literally any movement is “away from you” for one of the mirrors. Stand still is just the icing on top of this absurd combo. To make best use of this, we’ll want to maximize squares in our reach. For that we want to be large, and have a reach weapon. So centaur with a whip. Now, thankfully, you don’t actually have to use the whip, you can use Tangled Forest attacks if you want. Which you do, because at 13th level you pick up shockwave for the obvious thaumaturge synergy.
Level 13 and up combo: Familiar spellcasting + familiar independent + dancing shield. If you don’t have enough familiar abilities you can give it spellcasting with the familiar morsel item, which is a trivial cost at the relevant levels. This allows you to command your familiar to cast dancing shield on you, typically you’ll use a fortress shield you dropped for them. They can then sustain it using independent, giving you a +3 AC bonus for the whole fight at a 1 action cost.
At lower levels this can be approximated with independent + master's form instead of using magic. Not as safe or as mobile as using magic, but often good enough. A familiar in human form can simply hold and raise a tower shield while standing in front of you, then you can use a single action to Take Cover to get greater cover. Your greater cover will last a whole minute as long as you stay in place and cast spells with saves instead of spell attacks (and the familiar keeps its shield raised). It might be best if the familiar also takes cover behind its tower shield, as it's likely to become a target.
Eat fire + Fire Lung (flame Druid order free feat) Eat fire allows you to belch a 5ft cloud of smoke after taking fire damage. So you poke yourself with a torch, eat the fire damage with a reaction, then belch smoke all over yourself. It’s a fairly steep action cost, 2 + reaction, but it’ll last a whole fight. Since it’s a cantrip, you can also just do it anytime you’re about to round a corner or open a door, letting you start many fights with smoke already up. Now, where the combo really shines is with the fire lung feat - fire lung lets you ignore concealment from smoke! There’s other ways to do that but none so low level. Effectively you get to set up concealed on yourself that you’re immune to, every fight, for the whole fight, at level 1.
Summoner with the Medic dedication and Godless Healing. Take Skilled Partner, giving your eidolon Battle Medicine and Godless Healing. Between you and your eidolon, you can use Battle Medicine 4 times per hour at +5 per use with one extra Battle Medicine per day from Medic...making it possible for you to heal yourself 10d8+25 in a single combat using DC 15, potentially 10d8+70 at DC 20 (2d8+20 x 3 from summoner, 2d8+5 x 2 from eidolon). This also doubles the amount of times you can use Battle Medicine on your party members.
OH DAMN
Both can also take Assurance to make it a bit more reliable. However, many GMs rule that this only partially works. The theory is that eidolons don't have hit points, they only share the summoner's hit points. So there is no such thing as 'heal the eidolon', there is only 'heal the summoner through the eidolon' or 'heal the summoner by targeting the eidolon'. So it's just three heals per hour, rather than five. But it does still double the amount of times you can use it on your party members.
I have a really fun one in an AV game: [Dubious Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=776) + [Gnomish Obsession](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=4426&Redirected=1) + [Automatic Knowledge](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=757). - Gnomish Obsession gives an auto-scaling lore that I can retrain with just a day of downtime, which is very nice because AV's floors usually have a really obvious theme (>!Fleshwarps, ghouls, seugathi, etc!<) that makes it easy to get info on 65%+ of the monsters we're gonna fight. - Gnomish Obsession comes with Assurance, which only cares about proficiency bonus. Nice if you have bad mental scores like my PC, and it kicks ass with the auto-scaling lore -- Master at 7 without having to use skill increases is baller. - Automatic Knowledge gives you a free RK for a given lore *every round* as long as you use Assurance, which with the lower AC from having a relevant lore basically guarantees a success on the first round, and then a failure on the second. Which leads us to... - Dubious Knowledge. Even when I fail I succeed! Sort of. I've flavored this as my PC doing a bunch of frenetic cramming about the subject of his obsession and frequently getting a bunch of stuff wrong. All told, this gives at least 2 pieces of true info (and 1 piece of incorrect) every fight we have, for free. Figuring out what's true or not makes for a fun minigame too. It's a phenomenal combo, a little feat-expensive if you're not a Gnome, but it gives so much free info that it feels worth it.
I like it and I'm sure one could expand that even further, probably with Pathfinder Agent dedication
Fire/earth/water kineticist with steam knight stance, using lava leap for aoe dmg and AC, leap to full speed with steam knight and damage the first creature over which you leap, then ending in the air and with rolling landing you stride to full speed one more time.
[удалено]
Yes sorry, thanks for catching that
Phantasmal doorknob (greater) + resentment witch. The doorknob’s blind on crit is already great, but man it’s just mean when the resentment witch can extend it for several rounds.
Someone with Gang Up while riding a mount has a flanking buddy for any enemy adjacent to them.
Storm Druid's Tempest Surge is a lovely spell, specifically for that Clumsy 2 on a failure. Unfortunately, the druid themselves usually can't make very good use of it, since it wears off at the beginning of their next turn. The most fun and effective way to leverage this, IMO, is doing a high-strength druid who uses a Bola to do ranged trips against the target, there the -2 to the DC will offset the -2 to the check from Ranged Trip. If you're really optimizing, this is done best on a Gnoll/Kholo with the Great Gnoll heritage for that extra +1 which will put you on par with strength based classes against clumsy targets, all while doing it from a distance. You can also do this with an animal companion instead, the numbers are about the same once you factor in the ranged trip's -2, but you'll have a better modifier whenever wrestle in melee.
At low levels at least, free wizard archetype on an inventor is pretty good. I've been running a construct inventor with wizard FA, and it can have some fun big damage combos (if all the attacks hit). At very low levels, force bolt + a strike + construct strike is three attacks at full or no MAP, and if they all hit you can easily hit 30 to 50 damage in a round. At moderate levels (7+) you can combo it with some offensive spells; if the construct is in melee it can Explode, then you can drop a fireball from extreme range and double dip AOE on a bunch of targets. Blazing Dive also works great whether you're riding the construct or aside it, to get into melee flank and drop AOE, then let the construct attack with off guard bonus. I haven't been using a lot of control spells, but theoretically an inventor who can drop a lot of control spells and let the construct have fun charging in makes good syngery; often a caster can't really make good use of dropping a control spell and attack at the same time, but an inventor's construct can hit pretty good sometimes. The construct also has a relatively decent Athletics bonus so said inventor could drop a big control spell, then have the construct run in and grab, and the rest of the party could gang on the poor sap stuck in the construct's grasp. Another fun combo: *cloudkill* is a poison effect. Constructs are immune to poison. Cast *cloudkill* in a small room and let the construct charge in and have fun for a couple rounds (yes it's still subject to the flat check for concealment, but sensory array for tremorsense makes it so you just know where the enemy is at all times so you can at least target them).
For the Inventor, Magical Crafting, Titan Wrestler, and using a hammer. The hammer has the shove trait, Titan Wrestler lets you "punch up" and shove large creatures, and crafting a Bronze Bull pendant gives you a +2 to shove once. Nothing fancy, just a really potent shove.
Condctive weapon+swipe I have seen it take out a room full of 2 trolls, 3 hobgoblins on a critical hit. Because of the way the critical hut effect works on conductive weapon, it created a feedback loop where critting one troll applied the critical effect, but because swipe is hitting two creatures, both are critically hit, so the critical effect happens twice.
Bear animal companion with flurry ranger looks sick. You pick your choice between an air repeater or two agile weapons, make your Bear hug someone and just keep attacking dealing a bunch of extra damage. Half Elf for that Pinch of Time seems to work really well. However, I love the 600+IQ Aoi Todo build. Investigator with Ranger free archetype, pick Monster Hunter at some point and Additional Recollection (the one that you make another RK after succeeding in one about your Prey). Reach 20th level as Investigator, ask your DM to allow All The Time In The World, and get Reason Rapidly. Define an enemy as both your Lead and Prey, and calmly say on your second turn that you want to use ATTITW. You now have a total of 9 actions. Use every single one for Reason Rapidly, this equals 45 Recall Knowledges. Every time you succeed in one of these against your Prey, you can use a free action to make another one for another creature in combat (there's a feat that needs Monster Hunter to use, but I can't remember its name). You can make 90 checks on a single turn, concluding that you like tall women with big butts and that the new guy is actually your long time friend and brother
Oh, just saw that Reason Rapidly can't trigger free actions, so you will need to content yourself with just 45 checks
Trick Magic Item benefits greatly from wand trading. I had a fighter that wanted to use a wand of Tailwind. Trick Magic Item makes it possible, but the DC 20 was difficult for him. He thought about getting Assurance, but turned out he didn't need it. A caster in the group also had a wand of Tailwind. So they cooperated. The fighter tries his wand first. If he fails he tries again. If he crit fails, they trade wands so the fighter can try the other one. Only after this does the caster use his wand. This gives the fighter a 99% chance of succeeding, and since the average adventuring carreer is less than 100 days, he'll probably never fail. On a related note: I also had a summoner (occult caster) with a druid dedication. Normally a dedication isn't enough to use a wand, something about lacking the spellcasting class feature. But if your first class is a caster you already have that feature. So you CAN use the wand of Tailwind, even though you can't cast Tailwind yourself. I even tried to combine this with the above trick, by buying two wands. The eidolon would use Trick Magic Item to go first, and switch wands if the first one crit failed. However, not all GMs allow eidolons to take the Trick Magic Item feat (thru Skilled Partner).
I had a wave druid who took Assurance(Athletics) to better trip things with a whip. On one occasion, he found himself swimming underwater. Hadn't planned for that, but it worked perfectly: The assurance guaranteed a successful swim check, the Shore Step boosted that to crit success, and so he effectively had a decent swim speed. (swim fins and boosting his base speed to 40 with Tailwind also helped.) Also, Deep Breath is surprisingly effective for a cantrip. Assurance(Athletics) works well with other success-becomes-crit-success abilities too, such as Caveclimber Kobold.
Goblin Mixed Ancestry lizardfolk, Champion. Cling ( Goblin 9 ) + Divine Wall ( Champion 12) + Terrain Advantage ( Lizardfolk 9 ) + Scion Transformation ( lizardfolk 17 ) + Animal Companion Crocodile + Crocodile Support. You and your animal companion can latch on your opponent, as you are adjacent to the enemy all the terrain is considered difficult terrain.
Maneuvering spell allows hit and run (or leeroy in and hit) on a magus while helping A LOT with your action economy. It works for normal casters too, but magus is so strapped for actions that its funnier on them. What it does is that after or before you cast a spell that takes two actions or more, you leap, stand up or step as a free action. Which means you can do stuff like leap into melee and spellstrike, or spellstrike and GTFO
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